David Johnston '63 Among Final ECAC Hockey Top-50 Honorees

ALBANY, N.Y.—Two-time All-America
defenseman David Johnston ’63 is among the final installment
of players named to the list of the top 50 players in ECAC Hockey
history, the league has announced.

As part of its 50th-anniversary celebration, ECAC Hockey has
compiled a group of its top 50 players to recognize the storied
history of the league and honor its significant players. The league
released the 10th installment of five honorees Wednesday. The top
50 players were determined by a selection committee made up of
former coaches and media members, who selected the honorees from
145 nominees (47 defensemen, 73 forwards, 25 goaltenders).

The 10th segment of honorees is: Johnston; two-time All-America
goaltender Bruce Bullock of Clarkson; Gordie Clark, a three-time
all-league forward for New Hampshire; Cornell defenseman Bruce
Pattison, a part of three league-championship teams, and Herb
Wakabayashi, a forward from Boston University who represented Japan
at the 1972 Winter Olympics.

At Harvard, Johnston earned first-team All-America, All-Ivy
League and All-ECAC selections in both 1961-62 and 1962-63. He led
the Crimson to records of 21-3-2 overall, 17-3-2 in the ECAC and
9-0-1 in the Ivy League en route to ECAC and Ivy championships in
1962-63. Harvard won the Ivy title in each of his three years as a
letterwinner, posting a combined record of 27-1-2 in Ancient Eight
play.

Johnston was the recipient of the John Tudor Memorial Cup as the
team’s most valuable player for 1962-63, despite not scoring
a goal during the season. His assist on the winning goal by
Kinasewich in overtime of the 1963 ECAC championship game was his
25th of the season, a Harvard defenseman record at the time.

A native of Sudbury, Ont., Johnston currently serves as
Canada’s governor general.

All current and former teams’ impactful players were
reviewed in comprising the list of candidates for the special team.
Five players from the top 50 all-time team will be released every
two weeks throughout the season leading up the league championship
semifinals and final March 18-19 in Atlantic City, N.J.

The top 50 players were determined by a vote of a selection
committee of 10 individuals: Joe Bertagna ’73, former
student-athlete at Harvard, former hockey commissioner of the ECAC
and current commissioner of Hockey East; Ed Carpenter, former
sports information director at Boston University; Bill Cleary
’56, former student-athlete, head coach and director of
athletics at Harvard; John Connolly, longtime sports reporter at
the Boston Herald; Dan Fridgen, former student-athlete at Colgate
and head coach at Rensselaer; Mike Gilligan, former head coach at
Yale and Vermont; Lou Lamoriello, former student-athlete and head
coach at Providence and current CEO, president and general manager
of the New Jersey Devils; Mark Morris, former student-athlete at
Colgate and former head coach at Clarkson; Tim Taylor ’63,
former student-athlete at Harvard and head coach at Yale; and Adam
Wodon, editor of the College Hockey News website.